Galaxy Primes [Paperback]

Edward E Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 1975

*They were four of the greatest minds in the Universe: Two men two women lost in an experimental spaceship billions of parsecs from home. And as they mentally charted the Cosmos to find their way back to earth their own loves and hates were as startling as the worlds they encountered. Here is E. E. Smith's great new novel

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Panther (January 23, 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0586040021
• ISBN-13: 978-0586040027
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,118,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hey, Let's unify the galaxy!, December 15, 2007

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Galaxy Primes (Paperback)

You didn't have anything else planned for the afternoon, right?

"Belle" Bellamy (green-haired super-babe) and Clee Garlock (super everything else) are the two people on Earth with the highest innate degree of that amazing psionic-thingie. With it, their minds can hurl them between star systems, detonate nuclear blasts, and do lots of other neat tricks. In their interstellar gadding, they discover other intelligent and psi-capable humans. In fact, those others are so human-like that they are reproductively compatible. And, since the Earthian guys are obviously such superior beings, offers to test that compatibility come often.

It's not all good times and spread-the-genes, though. Dozens of star systems harbor human life, and psionic Primes, all at nearly identical levels of development social (except that some have decidedly inferior tobacco). Unfortunately, they're not all as easy-going and altruistic as Earth's Primes. As a result, Earth's Primes need to rough them up in their easy-going and altruistic way, to unify them under the newly-designed Galaxian banner. The Galaxian inner council consists of one Prime pair from each of those dozens of planets, in Noah-like male/female couples. How do we know they're the finest of each star system? Well, for one thing, the ladies of those planets are super-babes, too. Not only are they as mighty of mind as their men, they are also mighty in their womanliness and eager to prove it by racing the others to a demonstration of fecundity.

This is a wonderful artifact of its time, as close to Buster Crabbe's "Flash Gordon" as it is to the current day or maybe closer. It has all that cowboy exuberance and technological optimism, with gender relations a bit past the neolithic. (He and she both seem to long for a little more of the caveman/cavegirl between them, but even Doc Smith smelled women's lib in the air.) Despite the cultural imperialism and shallow sterotyping, or maybe because of it, Smith brings us space opera at its very finest.

-- wiredweird

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique psionic civilization, May 17, 2008

By 

Roger A. Connor Jr. (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Galaxy Primes (Paperback)

To the best of my knowledge over at least 50 years of reading SF&F, this is the only attempt to describe civilization(s) based upon the idea that the vast majority of the population are psionic. While this is classic space opera - the main characters are lost in space, fight invading aliens threatening the humanity of the worlds they are visiting, finally learn control of the mechanical psi-functioning spacecraft, and begin unifying the galaxy as a part of the United Galaxian Societies- it is also a subtle commentary on our civilization, especially the cold war. One notable idea is the statement "To the mature mind, there is no such thing as status. Each knows what he can do best and does it as a matter of course. Rank is not necessary."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hey, Let's unify the galaxy!, December 5, 2006

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

You didn't have anything else planned for the afternoon, right?

"Belle" Bellamy (green-haired super-babe) and Clee Garlock (super everything else) are the two people on Earth with the highest innate degree of that amazing psionic-thingie. With it, their minds can hurl them between star systems, detonate nuclear blasts, and do lots of other neat tricks. In their interstellar gadding, they discover other intelligent and psi-capable humans. In fact, those others are so human-like that they are reproductively compatible. And, since the Earthian guys are obviously such superior beings, offers to test that compatibility come often.

It's not all good times and spread-the-genes, though. Dozens of star systems harbor human life, and psionic Primes, all at nearly identical levels of development social (except that some have decidedly inferior tobacco). Unfortunately, they're not all as easy-going and altruistic as Earth's Primes. As a result, Earth's Primes need to rough them up in their easy-going and altruistic way, to unify them under the newly-designed Galaxian banner. The Galaxian inner council consists of one Prime pair from each of those dozens of planets, in Noah-like male/female couples. How do we know they're the finest of each star system? Well, for one thing, the ladies of those planets are super-babes, too. Not only are they as mighty of mind as their men, they are also mighty in their womanliness and eager to prove it by racing the others to a demonstration of fecundity.

This is a wonderful artifact of its time, as close to Buster Crabbe's "Flash Gordon" as it is to the current day or maybe closer. It has all that cowboy exuberance and technological optimism, with gender relations a bit past the neolithic. (He and she both seem to long for a little more of the caveman/cavegirl between them, but even Doc Smith smelled women's lib in the air.) Despite the cultural imperialism and shallow sterotyping, or maybe because of it, Smith brings us space opera at its very finest.

//wiredweird